The Continued Relevance of Ego Network Data

Ego network data have a long history in the social sciences, acting as a bridge between traditional statistical techniques and network analysis. Ego network data provide personal network information, as the data are based on a sample of individuals. This chapter details the basic features of such data, describing the advantages, disadvantages, and potential applications of using ego network data. Ego network data remain a popular choice, despite the growing availability of full network data sources. This is in large part because ego network data are easy to collect but still provide a surprisingly large amount of network information. Ego network data are also quite flexible, with past work using the same basic data structure for widely different purposes. Given the ease of collection and the flexibility of use, there is every reason to believe that ego network data will continue to be a useful option for network scholars.